Presser: BOCO voters presented with a chance to kill the jail project while USDA is put on notice a new board might not pay for a new jail. | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    The three conservative members of the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners, two candidates for that Board in November and the President of the Beaufort County Chapter of the NAACP held a press conference Monday just before the regular Board of Commissioners meeting and announced that they are sending a letter to the U. S. Department of Agriculture's Office of Rural Development that they do not support the borrowing a new debt at this time to build a jail/Sheriff's Office and "Public Safety Complex" in Chocowinity. The read the letter and after each commented they each signed it.

    The letter was delivered later that evening to Ms. Kim B. Miller, the Area Specialist for the USDA.

    Click here to download the letter for review.

    Here is the video of the entire presser:



    Commentary

    This could be big. This could be very big. Here's why.

    The current vote split on the Board of Commissioners on the jail is 4-3 with Robert Belcher, Ed Booth, Al Klemm and Jerry Langley carrying the majority. The three minority votes are Gary Brinn, Stan Deatherage, and Hood Richardson. Klemm and Deatherage will be leaving the board the first meeting in December when the new members are installed. There are three seats to be filled.

    Of the candidates running for those three seats, as you hear in the video, Keith Kidwell and Frankie Waters took unequivocal positions in favor of sacking the project at the first meeting in December. If those two are elected then the balance shifts from four in favor to four in opposition to building the jail.

    But it gets even more interesting. Also running for one of the three seats is Ed Booth who cast one of the four votes supporting the project. But he is being challenged by Antromeed Johnson who is running as an unaffiliated candidate. She and Booth are African Americans and it is expected that one or the other will get enough black votes to win one of the three seats. Booth's pro vote for the jail would likely be switched if Johnson wins. She has said she does not favor building a new jail at the present time.

    Also running are Ron Buzzeo and Robert Cayton. Buzzeo is a Republican being supported by the RINO wing of the GOP and Cayton has not taken a public position, to our knowledge, on the jail. Most observers give Cayton very little chance of winning if he supports building the jail. Buzzeo has been fuzzy on his position on the jail. Some speculate that the reason Buzzeo has not taken a strong unequivocal stance is that those in the RINO wing supporting him favor the jail so it is assumed that he either will vote as does Klemm or he will split with the RINO wing if he comes out strongly in opposition. He's between the "rock and a hard place."

    Of course the jail will not be the only issue. But at this point it appears to be the dominant issue for many of the conservative and unaffiliated voters in the county who are likely to vote.

    If you fit all those pieces on the Chess board you come to the obvious conclusion that a new jail is less likely to be built than it is that it will have four or more votes after November.

    So it becomes an interesting question about how the USDA will handle this controversy. Sources tell us they have been encouraging to the county that they would lend them the money. But presumably that was before it became obvious that there is a real possibility that the county will not build the project and if the USDA takes a lien on the property as collateral to avoid the Gang of Four having to submit it for a vote of the people then it is entirely possible the USDA would get stuck, as Hood Richardson said later in the meeting "with a foundation and little more and find themselves in the jail business."

    But there are those who believe that is really what is behind this project for the USDA. There is speculation that the Department of Homeland Security is working through the USDA to construct more prisons across the nation in anticipation of some kind of Armageddon, such as whatever it is that is driving them to purchase millions of rounds of hollow point ammunition. One observer at the meeting said: "I don't think USDA is afraid they'd be stuck with a jail. They would probably just convey it to Homeland Security and we would end up with a stalag right here in Beaufort County."

    Far fetched? Who knows. Stranger things are coming out of Washington, DC these days. But it does set up an interesting scenario for how USDA will react to the political realities between now and December in Beaufort County. Stay tuned.

    There was a public hearing on the jail at the regular meeting following the press conference. Check back later for the video of that meeting.

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